Cheltenham Dairy Company.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 275, 27 May 1896, Page 2

Cheltenham Dairy Company.

Towards the end of last year the directors of the Cheltenham Co-oper-ative Dairy Company, with a desire to t. find a fresh and more lucrative market \ for their batter than London, sent a '--. trial shipment of ten boxes to a firm in Manchester, England, doing a large re« v tail business in produce. This shipment . : ", '-) ..arrived there on December 30th, and- • "was followed by the same quantity everjr?^ fortnight. The firm referred to, after placing the trial shipment before their customers, reported most favorably on - ■ the quality. The butter was made up in pounds without any salt and suited the taste of the customers supplied with ifc so well that the iirm purchasing it : paid Is per pound, and asked for a regular shipment of twenty boxes a fortnight in place of ten. This is & very ...; , satisfactory result, particularly as at that time a shipment from another firm in New Zealand sold in London at > 90s per cwt. Also, in the early part of ■- April, while the Cheltenham Company were still getting Is a pound the Danish i butter was being retailed at the same price, and was on a par with Normandy, Brittany, and French fresh butter, which hitherto had always commanded the - best price, the latter at this time selling . ; from 9£d to 13d per pound. The Company are still sending away regularly twenty boxes every fortnight, and there is every prospect of the trade increasing and Manchester becoming one of the best markets for this company's bntter, which is already making a name for ■. itself there. But there is one point those supplying tho factory with milk mast face if they desire to secure a better market than can be procured locally for their butter and that is winter dairying. The English consumer, when he becomes' used to a particular brand does not like- ' changing, and retailers will not purchase the butter that they cannot procure a regular supply of all the year round, therefore it behoves dairy farmers to give their attention to winter dairying, which must pay in the end. From one of the boxes received in one of the last shipments, the firm report that four pounds of batter had been taken and the space filled with pieces of wood of the same class (white pine) as the boxes were made of. From this it wonld appear that the boxes had been opened before they left New Zealand and the butter extracted. The directors intend making enquiries with a view to stop* piug further pilfering cf this kind. 1